Asia is the world’s largest continent. With outlying islands, it covers about one third of the land area on Earth. The mainland is situated between latitude 78 0N and 1 0N and longitude 26 0E and 170 0W; it extends for about 9,700 km from east to west and 6,500 km from north to south. The continent is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the Pacific Ocean, and on the south by the Indian Ocean; the western boundary, with Europe, rungs roughly north-south along the eastern Ural Mountains, the Embo River, the Caspian Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea. The islands of Sri Lanka and Taiwan and archipelagoes of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan also form part of Asia.

Topographically, Asia is a ridge and valley system. The center of Asia is the Himalayas which is nearly 10 kilometers above sea level. Low plains occupy about one fifth of Asia and include the plains of northern and western Siberia, Turan, Mesopotamia, northern India and Southeast Asia. Tablelands and plateaus include the Arabian plateau, the Deccan Plateau, and the Indo-Pacific Plateau. Of the many desert regions, the largest ones include the Thar in India and Pakistan, the Gobi in Mongolia and China. Rivers, including the Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Irrawaddy drain about half of the continent into the Indian Ocean. The Ob, Lena, Yenisey rivers drain into the Arctic Ocean. The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest body of inland water; the Aral and Dead seas are Asia’s major saltwater lakes.

Climate ranges from the arctic in the north of Asia and sharp continental in Western Siberia to the equatorial in the Indonesia. Southern Asia is hot, seasonally wet tropical region under the control of the monsoon winds. The monsoon marks the semiannual rhythm of rainfall and drought. The characteristic effects of the monsoon are the seasonal reversal of wind direction, the strong summer maximum of rainfall, and the long winter dry season.

Vegetation types range from Arctic permafrost and tundra meadows along the northern coast in Siberia to tropical rain forests in the south-east. Between these two extremes are extensive coniferous taiga forests (north), deciduous and mixed forests (south), vast steppes (central), and xerophytic vegetation (south-east).

More people live in Asia than in any other region on Earth. Its people account for three fifths of the world’s population. In the early 1990s, Asia had more than 3,2 billion inhabitants. All three major races – Mongoloid, Negroid and Caucasoid – make up Asia’s population. But its huge population is not spread evenly over its vast lands. Some parts of Asia’s interior are cold, too dry, or too mountainous to support people. Four main areas in which the population is highly concentrated are the Ganges River Valley in India and Bangladesh; the island of Java in Indonesia, eastern China; and southern Japan.

Asia is the birth place of all the world’s major religions and hundreds of minor ones: Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity; Taoism and Confucianism.